It must have caved his whole face in. I guess I pulped his nose and smashed both his cheekbones. Jarred his little brain around real good. His legs crumpled and he hit the floor like a puppet with the strings cut. Like an ox in the slaughterhouse. His skull cracked on the concrete floor.
I stared around the knot of men. They were busy reassessing my status.
"Who's next?" I said. "But this is like Vegas now, it's double or quits. This guy is going to the hospital, maybe six weeks in a metal mask. So the next guy gets twelve weeks in the hospital, you understand that? Couple of smashed elbows, right? So who's next?"
There was no reply. I pointed at the guy in sunglasses.
"Give me the sweater, fat boy," I said.
He bent and picked up the sweater. Passed it to me. Leaned over and held it out. Didn't want to get too close. I took the sweater and tossed it onto Hubble's bunk.
"Give me the eyeglasses," I said.
He bent and swept up the twisted gold wreckage. Handed it to me. I tossed it back at him.
"They're broken, fat boy," I said. "Give me yours."
There was a long pause. He looked at me. I looked at him. Without blinking. He took off his sunglasses and handed them to me. I put them in my pocket.
"Now get this carcass out of here," I said.
The bunch of men in their orange uniforms and their red bandannas straightened out the slack limbs and dragged the big man away. I crawled back up into my bunk. I was shaking with adrenaline rush. My stomach was churning and I was panting. My circulation had just about shut down. I felt terrible. But not as bad as I would have felt if I hadn't done it. They'd have finished with Hubble by then and started in on me.
I DIDN'T EAT ANY BREAKFAST. NO APPETITE. I JUST LAY ON the bunk until I felt better. Hubble sat on his bed. He was rocking back and forward. He still hadn't spoken. After a while I slid to the floor. Washed at the sink. People were strolling up to the doorway and gazing in. Strolling away. The word had gotten around fast. The new guy in the cell at the end had sent a Red Boy to the hospital. Check it out. I was a celebrity.
Hubble stopped his rocking and looked at me. Opened his mouth and closed it again. Opened it for a second time.
"I can't take this," he said.
They were the first words I had heard him say since his assured banter on Finlay's speakerphone. His voice was low, but his statement was definite. Not a whine or a complaint, but a statement of fact. He couldn't take this. I looked over at him. Considered his statement for a long moment.
"So why are you here?" I asked him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm not doing anything," he said. Blankly.
"You confessed to something you didn't do," I said. "You asked for this."
"No," said Hubble. "I did what I said. I did it and I told the detective."
"Bullshit, Hubble," I said. "You weren't even there. You were at a party. The guy who drove you home is a policeman, for God's sake. You didn't do it, you know that, everybody knows that. Don't give me that shit."
Hubble looked down at the floor. Thought for a moment.
"I can't explain it," he said. "I can't say anything about it. I just need to know what happens next."
I looked at him again.
"What happens next?" I said. "You stay here until Monday morning, and then you go back to Margrave. Then I guess they'll let you go."
"Will they?" he said. Like he was debating with himself.
"You weren't even there," I said again. "They know that. They might want to know why you confessed, when you didn't do anything. And they'll want to know why the guy had your phone number."
"What if I can't tell them?" he said.
"Can't or won't?" I asked him.
"I can't tell them," he said. "I can't tell anybody anything."
He looked away and shuddered. Very frightened.
"But I can't stay in here," he said. "I can't stand it."
Hubble was a financial guy. They give out their phone numbers like confetti. Talking to anybody they meet about hedge funds or tax havens. Anything to transfer some guy's hard-earned dollars their way. But this phone number was printed on a scrap of torn computer paper. Not engraved on a business card. And hidden in a shoe, not stuffed in a wallet. And playing in the background like a rhythm section was the fear coming out of the guy.
"Why can't you tell anybody?" I asked him.
"Because I can't," he said. Wouldn't say anything more.
I was suddenly weary. Twenty-four hours ago I had jumped off a Greyhound at a cloverleaf and walked down a new road. Striding out happily through the warm morning rain. Avoiding people, avoiding involvement. No baggage, no hassle. Freedom. I didn't want it interrupted by Hubble, or by Finlay, or by some tall guy who got himself shot in his shaved head. I didn't want any part of it. I just wanted some peace and quiet and to go looking for Blind Blake. I wanted to find some eighty-year-old who might remember him from some bar. I should be talking to that old guy who swept up around the prison, not Hubble. Yuppie asshole.
He was thinking hard. I could see what Finlay had meant. I had never seen anybody think so visibly. His mouth was working soundlessly and he was fiddling with his fingers. Like he was checking off positives and negatives. Weighing things up. I watched him. I saw him make his decision. He turned and looked over at me.
"I need some advice," he said. "I've got a problem."
I laughed at him.
"Well, what a surprise," I said. "I'd never have guessed. I thought you were here because you were bored with playing golf on the weekend."